1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a booting technology for a mobile device and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for supporting a faster and more stable boot process by using a hibernation function in a mobile device.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the remarkable growth of related technologies, many types of mobile devices have recently become popular. Specifically, mobile devices today have outgrown their respective traditional fields and have reached a mobile convergence stage. In the case of a mobile communication device, for example, in addition to traditional communication functions such as a voice call and an Short Message Service (SMS), various essential or optional multimedia functions are widely used such as a portable broadcasting (e.g., Digital Multimedia Broadcasting (DMB) or Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB), a digital music player (such as an e.g., MPEG audio layer-3 (MP3) player), a digital camera, a wireless Internet, a dictionary, and the like.
The use of various functions may cause an increase in the amount of data required to drive a mobile device in a system boot process. This may also increase the time required in a system boot process. Thus, many techniques to reduce the system boot time of a mobile device have been introduced in the art.
One of such techniques is to package data used for a system boot process in a nonvolatile memory (e.g., a flash memory) and then load this package, as it is, into a volatile memory (e.g., Random Access Memory (RAM)) in a system boot process. This data package for a boot process is often referred to as a snapshot image or a hibernation image. Performing a boot process of a mobile device by using a snapshot image is often referred to as a hibernation function.
However, a hibernation function of a conventional mobile device still has drawbacks, including the following drawbacks. If the data volume of a snapshot image is excessively large, a lot of time is required for loading this snapshot image into volatile memory. Thus, this will cause a serious delay of a system boot process in a conventional mobile device.
Additionally, when turned off using a hibernation function, a conventional mobile device performs a process of storing a snapshot image in a nonvolatile memory. Therefore, if a snapshot image is created in abnormal operations of a mobile device, or if abnormal power-off of a mobile device occurs during creation of a snapshot image, this mobile device may fail in a boot process using a snapshot image. Even in case of a successful boot, there is no guarantee that a mobile device will operate in a normal manner.